Naše putovanje u Hrvatsku | Our trip to Croatia

Many of you already know about our disastrous trip home to New York.  After so much medical drama during our trip, I was hoping against hope that we'd be able to jump on our flights effortlessly and get Steven to a doctor once we got home.  Instead, "malo paklo"--the cutesy, memorable name I chose for this blog--turned out to be exactly what the last two days of this trip eventually became: "a small hell." Prior to leaving Zagreb, I was already anxious about the process of getting home.  For weeks there have been reports of chaos at Heathrow, a condition we had already witnessed when we flew in on our way to Zagreb.  As a perpetual worrier, I was concerned about returning the car to OKMobility. I worried about getting Steven a wheelchair at the airport.  I worried that we couldn't get both sets of boarding passes at once.  I worried about getting a wheelchair for Steven at Heathrow.  You can imagine me in a general state of high anxiety which, as I hav...

Tuesday, July 12 We left Pazin late in the morning around 10:30am. Before checking out, I spent a good half hour cleaning blood stains off the floor where Steven left footprints.  Yup, he's still bleeding! The drive back to Zagreb had us going back through Rijeka and then across the Učka mountain range.  We went through a series of short and long tunnels pretty much all the way until we got to Zagreb county.  Our top speed for most of the trip was 110km/hr (68mph), whereas most of the highways in Zagreb, Zagorje, and Slavonija max out at 130km/hr (~81mph).  It took us 2 2/12 hours to reach our last AirBnB where Carol had already checked in two days earlier. This last apartment where we're staying is awesome. It's more like a hotel suite than an apartment rental. The host Ana has decorated it rather tastefully and coordinated everything down to the towels and paper napkins.  There are quirks though. She insists on following Zagreb's rather ambitious but inconsis...

 As we were saying goodbye to Bruno and Blaga in Trogir a couple days ago, Bruno asked where we were headed to next.  I told him we were going to Rijeka, Opatija, and several cities in Istrija including Rovinj . "Rovinj!" he said nostalgically, "Rovinj is a dream for me." Well, after that ringing endorsement for travel, I just couldn't wait to visit! We got kind of a late start today. Steven is dragging every morning, so we didn't really get our act together until just after noon.  We stopped first at the pharmacy in Pazin so that Steven could stock up on gauze bandage and paper tape.  I finally figured out that it was best to let him out of the car close to our destinations while I go and park in order to minimize the walking he has to do.  Pazin isn't that big of a place, but here, as everywhere in Croatia, parking is really tough.  I found a parking lot about two blocks away and caught up with him just as he was trying out a cane he intended to buy. S...

I spent much of Sunday catching up on my blog. Steven was resting in the bedroom and then in the garden, while I was pounding away at my keyboard, trying to make sense of the last several days.  While I felt a teensy bit guilty for not going out to explore more of Istrija, I've also come to the realization that it is indeed worthwhile to make time for reflecting on our experiences. Around 3:00 pm I made a foray into town, pausing in the Park of the National Uprising.  Here I discovered a monument celebrating the victory of the Yugoslav Partisans.  Since the Domovinski rat (the Croatian Homeland War, as they call it), there's been a systematic attempt to embrace the national and to suppress, or perhaps better, to downplay what was expressly Yugoslav, including the role of the Socialist Partisans in Croatia.  Hence, my surprise that there was a Marshall Tito Street in Opatija. (I thought it would have been renamed to something more Croatian nationalist.) But I'm guessi...